Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

Chapter 248: Darkness (1)

Darkness.

According to physics, it was a state where no object reflected or created light. A place of theoretical zero energy, with how in this absolute darkness I could see no proof of any matter existing.

The darkness I found myself in seemed to have no end, no substance, no energy, and nothing else.

Just like physicists of earth said, darkness wasn't a thing in itself, but a lack of light.

'But if such is the case, why can I feel resonating with this darkness?'

This thought suddenly shook me awake.

After a moment, or what seemed like a moment, of letting the darkness comfort and lull me into a relaxed state, I finally regained the drive, the one thing that pushed people forward even when all their basic needs were fulfilled.

The drive to understand what's going on. The drive to return to Fay's inviting embrace. The drive to… do stuff.

But how I was supposed to do anything when I was surrounded by nothing?

I was no god to create something out of nowhere. I couldn't create light that could disperse the darkness and allow me to take a look either.

Stuck in this endless, unending, and bottomless pit of darkness, I could somehow tell that hoping for anything to disturb this darkness would be a fool's errand.

"What the actual fuck is going on," I asked myself out loud, sensing how my entire self would start to deteriorate unless I provided some sort of stimulus to my brain. And with no light or matter… My voice was the only thing left that I could produce and then consume.

Stuck, I tried to delve into my memories, quickly reconstructing what had happened before I found myself in this pit of eternal darkness.

'We had a slight disagreement, then moved on to take part in the battle, then I found out that my own powers were starting to merge with the nature of Fay's aura, then we reconciled, and right as we were about to lose our battle against our inherence induced lust…'

I took a deep breath… Or at least, went through the motions I would normally do when breathing in.

Still, my lungs filled with air… Or maybe my brain replicated the sensation it expected to go through even in the absence of stimulus that was responsible for causing it?

'Let's put that aside. There's no point trying to figure out everything about this place at once. Let's start with just one tiny detail I didn't notice before.'

This was the task I set for myself. The first step I had to make if I wanted to figure out the essence of this strange, dark space I found myself in.

Yet, knowing that I wanted to discover something about this world of darkness didn't make it any easier to actually do so.

'And how exactly am I supposed to figure out something that I cannot touch, smell, see, hear, or even feel?'

There was no physical sense that could allow me to actually register darkness, for darkness was only the default state of lacking stimulus.

And with all of my physical senses out of question… I reverted to the only force that went beyond the scientific understanding of the world that a college-less kid like me had.

'Let's use aura!' I decided…

Only to discover that now that the world's aura wasn't there to constantly remind me of the presence of aura… I actually had no idea how to use it. Still, there was no denying that I used aura. I pushed my own aura to construct tangible objects from elemental darkness!

Still, even after recalling the sensation I felt whenever I exploited my darkness core to manipulate elemental darkness proved to be useless.

No matter how much I willed for my aura to infuse itself into the everpresent darkness all around me, said darkness refused to buckle. It simply refused to grow tangible, no matter how hard I tried to infuse my aura into it…

Or rather, no matter how hard I tried to replicate the sensation of pushing aura into darkness that I found in my memories.

"Haaa…"

With my patience slowly reaching its limit, I breathed out and relaxed back.

In this world of nothingness, there was no chair for me to sit… but also no ground for me to stand on. As such, when I decided it was time to relax and let my mind rest a little, I simply left my body to hang in space, devoid of any pressures or pulls.

And it was in this strange state of suspension in whatever filled this strange, dark space… I finally got to thinking.

What it meant was that I couldn't feel anything. What was a possible reason for my inability to infuse aura into darkness… Or rather, to feel my own aura in the first place.

A myriad of questions that I had no real answer for save for some random guessing based on nothing more… but even more guesses and random assumptions. .net

And yet, amidst all those confusing elements that refused to stick together to make up a greater picture, one question continued to rock around in my mind.

'If I can't even access my own aura… then where the hell does all this darkness come from?'

This couldn't be normal darkness. I refused to believe it.

Whatever was going on, however, what my rebirth was supposed to look like, I was sure it wouldn't randomly drop me in one of the great dark zones of the universe.

'If it did, I would've long frozen over, had the air in my lungs expand and pop my body like a balloon, and went through all the other horrors of finding oneself in outer space."

I've watched enough videos about what would happen if someone were to appear in outer space without a space suit to realize that… this simply couldn't be my current situation.

And since I wasn't in outer space… then where exactly I was? And why was darkness the only thing present?

'And most importantly… how is me being here tied to my rebirth?'